I know you don’t Mean it !
A Deeper Dive into Ambiguity and Polysemy
The ideals of Clarity, Brevity And Sincerity were once universally accepted essential characteristics of good communication process, but rhetoricians started to realize the value of Ambiguity which was traditionally considered a defect in language style (Jaisinski). A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process(“Ambiguity”).
Ambiguity often is figured as a pharmakon (a Greek term meaning both poison and cure), a potential linguistic poison that prevents understanding and human cooperation or that can, in certain circumstances, function as a linguistic cure that enhances understanding and cooperation. (Jaisinki, Pg.47)
If we pay close attention, we will find that even in our daily conversations, we often use a type of Ambiguity called Polysemy. It involves words which relate to the same basic meaning of the word as it occurs but in different contexts (Weinreich, 1964). For example, in the sentences ‘‘John painted the door’’ and ‘‘Allen walked through the door’’, the word ‘door’ in former sentence refers to a ‘physical object’, whereas in the second sentence it refers to an “opening’’. Yet, the basic meaning of the word is the same in both sentences.
Thus, we see how Polysemy is a common fact of everyday language use, and its not a surprise that we humans smoothly interpret the right meaning usually without conscious effort.
The question that now arises is ‘What is the locus of ambiguity’ i.e. whether it resides in the source’s intentions, the receiver’s interpretations, or in the message itself ? Clarity (and conversely, ambiguity) is not an attribute of messages; it is a relational variable which arises through a combination of source, message, and receiver factors.
Communication starts with the message or idea that author/speaker wants to convey. That message is then passed through a medium (radio, books, phone, interpreter etc) to the receiver who then decodes the meaning according to his/her own interpretation and understands the message .
Instead of simply recognizing and celebrating the polysemous text in communication, we must ask some very important questions of it, including “who does it benefit?” and “how should we judge it?” Hence we will talk about the factors contributing to polysemy and ambiguity in detail (EisenBerg,Pg.229).
Speaker/Author :
Often Author/speaker influence the meaning of the text by limiting the interpretation of a text or narrow its potential meaning into a “preferred reading”(Jasinki). Politicians, Religious Preachers, Advertisements, Authoritative figures tend to indulge in this practice .
In the above advertisement by Mercedes Benz,the car manufacturer has tried to make the customer believe that their cars are best in the field by providing no other definition for the brand but “the best” while any other option is termed as “Nothing”.
Strategic Ambiguity ( A rhetorical technique used by Speaker/Author)
People in organizations confront multiple situations everyday and hence develop multiple and often conflicting goals. To this end, they respond with communicative strategies that are ambiguous and effective. They use resources of ambiguity in an attempt to strike a balance between being understood, not offending others, and maintaining one’s self-image. (Eisenberg,2009)
Strategic ambiguity in organisations helps to:
(1) promotes unified diversity :
❖ Core organizational values may have a mantra-like ability to bind a group together while at the same time not limiting specific interpretations. Definition of Leadership is always poetic, abstract to encourage creativity and guards against the acceptance of one standard way of viewing organizational reality.
❖The writing of group documents shows unified diversity. Group members appeal to a repertoire of increasingly ambiguous legitimations which both retain the appearance of unity and reasonably represent the opinions of the group.
(2) Facilitates organizational change : Organizational goals are expressed ambiguously to allow organizations the freedom to alter operations which have become maladaptive over time and preserve a sense of continuity.
Eg.Naisbitt (1982) argues that the question facing organizations in the 1980’s is “What business are you really in?” When air travel replaced sea travel from the United States to Europe, those cruise lines that survived did so because they defined their goals broadly as entertainment or hospitality, not narrowly as transportation. In this case, an ambiguous goal allowed these organizations to adapt by providing new types of services, such as pleasure cruises to nowhere and activities on boats that never left the dock.
(3) Preserves privileged positions. :
An individual can disclose an important piece of information ambiguously like “I feel uncomfortable in this job” and then deny specific interpretations should they arise “You mean you can’t get along with the boss?”.
In some other cases Strategic Ambiguity is likely planned by the author such that two or more conflicting groups of readers converge in praise of a text.
❖Example : An example of this form of polysemy is seen when a music video by the rock-star Madonna is interpreted by readers of Playboy as a “sex kitten” display for their enjoyment, but is interpreted by girls as a strong woman’s challenge to patriarchy. But ultimately, the power over textual signification remains with the author, who inserts both meanings into the text and who benefits economically from the polysemic interpretation. (Ceccarelli,Pg.404)
Text/Message
Texts are open to different interpretations because of the society, culture and tradition they represent. Since the society and culture have various fractions and divisons, the text gets modulated accordingly (Fiske in Ceccarelli).
For eg. In England, to fart means to pass wind. But if you find yourself in Norway, Denmark or Sweden, fart means speed (Brown).
Medium
According to Mashall Mcluhan,each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its own intrinsic effects on message(McLuhan).
The effect of medium can be best understood by experiences of translators who work as medium between two people speaking different languages.
Eg.Nikita Khrushchev’s part of speech at the Polish Embassy in Moscow, in reference to the United States and the Western World was misinterpreted by the interpreter (Medium)at the highest point of the Cold War: The part was misinterpreted as “We will bury you” which was later known to be really said as: “We will outlast you”, and we all know of the consequences that this poor rendition generated during such a tense time in history.(S.S)
Audience:
McKerrow believed “audience has its own power over the message.” (Ceccarelli,Pg.399)
Resistive Reading is one such technique used by subordinate audience to develop a contrary understanding of the text’s meaning, enabling them to have greater degree of power such that the producer no longer has control over the denotional meaning of the message.
❖Eg. Just weeks before end of Civil War, the Second Inaugural speech given by Lincoln as an attempt to embrace shared responsibility and unification was seen differently by North and South. The Northern Audience focused on his depiction of the war as a divine punishment to “both North and South” for “American Slavery” and highlighted that government was forced to “accept war rather than let the nation perish”. However, when the Southern newspaper printed it there was no mention of Lincoln’s admission that the war is a joint punishment to North and South, and no hint that he called for charity and a rejection of malice. To this Southern audience, the speech was a construction of moral hegemony of North to depict the war as a righteous battle against the slaveholders i.e the South.
Hermeneutic Depth ( 3rd type of Polysemy )
When a critic recognizes “hermeneutic depth,” s/he does not make a claim about how audiences “actually” read a text, but instead, offers a new expanded way that audiences should read a text.Sometimes its important to embrace both contradictory themes.It is only through acceptance of multiple and inconsistent messages that the problems can be confronted.” (Ceccarelli, Pg.408)
● Abortion Laws- Before we choose sides, hermeneutics advises us that we understand the pros and cons of both pro-choice as well as pro-life movements of abortion and see an overall view of such existing laws.
Work Cited
“Ambiguity.” Social Stratification | World Problems & Global Issues | The Encyclopedia of World Problems, encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/135985
Brown, Jessica. “13 English Words That Have Totally Different Meanings in the Rest of the World.” indy100, indy100, 16 Oct. 2016, www.indy100.com/article/english-words-that-have-totally-different-meanings-around-the-world-7364061
Ceccarelli, Leah. “Polysemy: Multiple meanings in rhetorical criticism.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 84.4 (1998): 395–415.
Empson, William. Seven types of ambiguity.Vol. 645.Random House, 2004.
Eisenberg, Eric M. “Ambiguity as strategy in organizational communication.” Communication monographs 51.3 (1984): 227–242.
Jasinki, James. “Sourcebook on rhetoric: Key concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies.” (2001).
Jasinki, James. “Polysemy.” Jasinki, James. Source on Rhetoric. Sage Publication Limited , 2001. 441.
McLuhan, Dr. Eric. <https://www.marshallmcluhan.com/common-questions/>.
Pandey, Vikas. BBC News. 3 September 2014. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29026474>.
S.S, Robin. 9 January 2015. <https://rpstranslations.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/the-biggest-interpreting-mistakes-in-history/>.
